


no big surprise you turned out this way

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas fic, Class Issues, Coming Out, F/F, Fake Dating, M/M, Multi, The weather shoves them together, Which is no great trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 21:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: “Trunk is full,” Enjolras told him. “Just… scootch things to one side.”Enjolras’ back seat was stuffed with fliers, three ring binders stuffed to amusing angles, various protest signs. Grantaire painted some of them himself. He tried to hide a grin as he nudged them to one side, noticing his own handiwork, but he caught Enjolras watching him like a hawk in the rear view mirror, and his good mood evaporated.“I’m not going to mess up your shit,” he said, and seatbelted his duffel bag into its own seat, and settled in for what was sure to be a long ride.*OR, Grantaire has no place to go for Christmas, and also there is fake dating.





	no big surprise you turned out this way

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Twin Sized Mattress by the Front Bottoms, which is the song I anachronistically imagine E + R are singing in the car in World Ain't Ready.

Grantaire’s mother is crying when he facetimes her, and seriously, how dare Apple make him watch that in eight-megapixel clarity? He can see her wet eyelashes in high definition. “Mama,” he groans. 

“This is why,” she sniffs, “I didn’t answer your call. Didn’t want you to worry.”

Grantaire’s hands flex against nothing, because there’s nothing he can do. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she says, with fresh tears, although Grantaire is well aware that if he’d left the first day of the holiday break, instead of scheduling a flight around his friend group’s holiday party, he’d be home by now. The whole mess of it has been a nauseous scramble in Grantaire’s stomach since he realize his flight would be grounded until after the storm passed. His mom and baby sister are going to be  _ alone  _ on fucking  _ Christmas.  _

The Grantaire of a year ago would have already been spiraling out of control on some kind of self-destructive bender, erasing himself until after Christmas was over and he was a sodden heap of unthinking liver damage. This year’s Grantaire says, “I’ll make it up to you. We’ll have a big dinner for new year. I’ll make that pasta thing.”

“The pasta thing is terrible,” his mom says, giving him a wet laugh. “I hate it.”

“Hating it brings us together as a family,” he tells her.

“I love you,” she says. “Please let me know where you end up staying for Christmas.” 

“I’ll let you know. Worst case, I stay on campus.” His mother’s mouth is starting to wobble dangerously again. “But I will probably find something else!”

The thing was — and of course, Grantaire didn’t think he’d ever mention it to his mom — was that the ABC hadn’t even  _ had  _ a party, because too many people had seen this coming and had driven home early. He’d planned his whole flight home around something that hadn’t materialized, and then by the time he was realizing it, it was too expensive to change his own. 

He was not without options, but it was probably best for everyone that he wait out the brunt of the storm and the bite of the holiday away from home in his own dorm. 

Courf and Combeferre were both on campus, but they were boyfriends and painfully precious, somehow landing in the overlap of the long-term familiarity of being best friends and also caught up in the first flush of newly verbalized romantic love. They were, Grantaire suspected, almost pleased to be snowed in. He’d visit with them, of course, if he stayed on campus, but he wouldn’t invite himself into their suite. 

There was also Eponine, who had invited him back to her home for Christmas, but he had a feeling it would cost her something. Eponine was in extended foster care, which meant that until twenty two, providing she did not get arrested, she would have somewhere to sleep. It did not, however, seem like a gift freely given; her foster parents seemed to resent her for not being entirely self reliant at nineteen and a half, and he hardly wanted to make Christmas more strained for her. Grantaire wanted to steal her away and gift her to his mother, instead, because people like Eponine and people like his mother deserved to have each other.

It was Eponine who worked out the details. She was brash and a little demanding, which he liked, usually. When he answered the door, she skipped over the mundanity of greetings to say, “I asked Enjolras to come get you for Christmas and unless you tell me that you’re going to stay with Courf and Ferre, I don’t plan on calling him off.”

“Why would Enjolras agree to that?” Graintaire had spluttered, honestly flabbergasted. “Did you have him in an arm bar at the time?”

“No, don’t be dim. He’s a friend.”

“We’re both … members of the same group. I don’t know if  _ friend _ is mild enough.”

“The two of you are friend _ ly, _ ” Eponine says. 

Grantaire made a vague noise. “He has not called me a degenerate in several meetings.” 

“Your rapport is unique,” Eponine counters. “Super fun. I wish I had a cute girl to pay attention to me like he pays attention to you.” 

“You super do,” Grantaire said, allowing himself to be sidetracked far too easily, and thinking of Cosette, who had interviewed Joly for the school paper, about the fact that most of the buildings at the University were technically compliant with the ADA, but it was still wildly inconvenient to get to a lot of his classes. She'd stuck around far, far longer than she'd needed to. “I think the problem might be that you’ve both been conditioned not to act on your romantic impulses, so you guys both keep doing the super passive thing where you keep letting the other know that you’re  _ super available,  _ but no one makes any moves.”

“What am I supposed to do, R, thump her over the head with a rock and drag her to my cave?” 

“No. What the fuck, Ep! No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend if you can’t figure out any steps between mentioning that someone picked up a thursday shift for you and the one two punch of rock and cave.”

“I can think of a lot of steps,” Eponine mumbled, but Grantaire put his hand up and barely grazed her face with the tips of his knuckles. Eponine’s skin was dark enough that he couldn’t tell if she was blushing, but he could feel the telltale warmth to know she was flustered. He leaned in and gave her a little peck on the curve of her eyebrow. 

“Ride the holiday magic,” he advised. “You’re both weird and funny. You could have a christmas miracle.”

Eponine opened her mouth, but then snapped it shut again, and for a minute Grantaire thought she was going to argue with either assessment. She did not. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry I’m not putting you up at the Neicewanger’s. You know things are kind of...” she made a hand gesture that Grantaire, knowing context and details, interpreted as  _ a clusterfuck.  _

“You, my dear,” Grantaire said, giving her the sort of all-encompassing embrace that he structured with the golden rule ( _ hug unto others as you would have them hug unto you _ ) and nuzzled his head into the top of her hair, which tickled his face, “have nothing to be sorry about. One day there’ll be a big house out in the woods and I’ll put you and my mom and Emma.” 

“You have such a weird fantasy,” she said, but she was soft against him, her face pressed against her chest. 

It gave Grantaire a pang to put her down, knowing that she’d spend her holiday with a pair of trained professionals rather than parents, but he was proud of her for staying where she was, despite the discomfort. They exchanged holiday well wishes and a second hug. 

Eponine hadn’t misled him: half an hour later, Enjolras called him. 

Enjolras, unlike everyone else Grantaire knew, chose a phone call over a text almost every time, because the man valued a prompt response and someone’s undivided attention. Grantaire found it both ridiculous and demanding under most circumstances. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras said. In his mouth, it wasn’t a greeting, but instead something with more intent. More like an order. 

Grantaire was determined not to let Enjolras’ brisk manners, or lack thereof, ruffle him. “The very same,” he agreed. 

“I’m on campus,” Enjolras said. “For you. I’m coming up behind the business building but they seem to have blocked off the path to your hall for some reason. If I go back out the the road and try to come up to your building from the other side, it’ll be another twenty minutes and I’m not sure if there’s a reason you’re not accessible.”

“Oh,” Grantaire said. He didn’t know why his building was roped off, so he could neither confirm nor deny that he was accessible from the other end of campus. “I’ll — I can walk out there and meet you.”

“Okay,” Enjolras agreed. “Take your time. I’m just going to park behind the geometric statue of a phallus.” 

“Not its name,” Grantaire said. 

“You know what I’m talking about,” Enjolras said. He did not find Grantaire charming. 

Grantaire said, “Anything else?”

“That’s the sum total of it,” Enjolras said, so Grantaire let him know that he would meet him outside and Enjolras ended the call. There was rarely a goodbye when Enjolras had received all of the information he needed over the phone. 

Enjolras drove a car that was several model years older than Grantaire had been expecting when he first saw it. Enjolras, who was well polished and was flattered by all possible camera angles, belonged in something sleek and prowling. Grantaire has never asked, but he’s always been curious about Enjolras’ car, if it’s irony or some desire to be seen as working class. To be honest, it turns Grantaire’s stomach. 

“Hi,” Grantaire said, opening Enjolras’ passenger door. “Do you want me to put my bag in the trunk or your backseat?” 

“Trunk is full,” Enjolras told him. “Just… scootch things to one side.”

Enjolras’ back seat was stuffed with fliers, three ring binders stuffed to amusing angles, various protest signs. Grantaire painted some of them himself. He tried to hide a grin as he nudged them to one side, noticing his own handiwork, but he caught Enjolras watching him like a hawk in the rear view mirror, and his good mood evaporated. 

“I’m not going to mess up your shit,” he said, and seatbelted his duffel bag into its own seat. “You stay put,” he says to the duffel, patting it once it was strapped in. 

Grantaire settled in for what was sure to be a tense drive.


End file.
